Small workshop courses, averaging eight to ten students, provide intensive feedback and instruction for both beginners and advanced writers, and each year 25 to 30 seniors work individually with a member of the faculty on a creative thesis: a novel, a screenplay, or a collection of short stories, poems or translations. Writers of national and international distinction visit campus throughout the year to participate in the Althea Ward Clark W’21 Reading Series and to discuss their work. The Lewis Center’s Performance Central series presents the biennial Princeton Poetry Festival drawing poets from around the world. A new Emerging Writers series puts students at the podium alongside a lineup of guest writers curated by seniors in the program. The Leonard Milberg collections and Princeton’s unparalleled library and archives also provide world-class opportunities for the study of contemporary literature.

The Lewis Center for the Arts is designed to put the creative and performing arts at the heart of the Princeton experience. This mission is based on the conviction that exposure to the arts, particularly to the experience of producing art, helps each of us to make sense of our lives and the lives of our neighbors.